OMG!!!!1 Everyone’s favorite little kitties from icanhascheezburger.com transcend their humble http beginnings in this overly derivative, but occasionally amusing musical from Sauce and Co. Inspired by the ubiquitous URL above (also called LOLCats in the popular lexicon), I Can Has Cheezburger – The MusicLOL is the latest off the “[Insert Cultural Phenomenon] – The Musical!” assembly line, but is nowhere near as clever as, say, last year’s Perez Hilton Saves the Universe. The story is simple enough – Lolcat wants cheezburger. Lolcat is uploaded to internet. Lolcat meets various other forwarded email stars. Lolcat must choose between his new friends and cheezburger. Big dance number. LOL. Curtain.
“Lolcat” (played friskily by Seth Grugle) and his anthropomorphic friends sing and seem to have a lot of dumb fun as they pursue their destinies – be they cheezburgers, buckits or excel sums – but eventually a MusicLOL must stand on its own furred feet. Book/Lyric/Music writers Kristyn Pomranz and Katherine Steinberg rely too much on the inherent funniness of the Lolcats, who are projected on a screen behind the action as frequently as possible. Cheezburger’s music and story are as by-the-book as possible, and, even worse, largely structured around which image pops up when. Even though everyone in the packed house laughed when the “Pew Pew Pew” kitty popped up on screen, it had little to do with the rote musical they were seeing. There is a strong potential in this visible connection between what is onstage and its internet inspiration, but, disappointingly, the former only rarely evokes ROFLing.
Despite a few inspired performances (like Liana Jessop as the squealing “Orly Owl” and Vincent Digeronimo as the Eyor-like “Lolrus”), Cheezburger hardly qualifies as an EPIC WIN.
